Primaries and General Elections

 

I Am An Illusion

Wrong step
We got off track
We need someone to help us get back now
Worn thin
Awful state I was in
I believe they were fooling me
Now I'm down
I am down
But I'm not real anymore
I am an illusion 

The problem is that in an election, we need to trust that someone is real, not an illusion 

George Santos won his general election because he won his Republican primary. Donald Trump is the favorite to win the Republican primaries for President in 2024 and did win the Republican primaries in 2016. In 2020, many real Republicans retired rather than facing the challenge of being primaried. Those that did run WERE primaried, but in many cases those that won their Republican primary lost the general election. It sounds like the primary system alone is not working to identify the best candidate for the People. 

The Republican primary seems to automatically confer the Republican endorsement. In fairness, the Democratic primaries seem to mean the same. Under the primary system, endorsement does not mean that the candidate has been vetted and is to be trusted. https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2021/04/ranked-choice-voting.html 

If there are only two parties, it would be preferable if the general elections had the possibility of four candidates, the winner of each party’s primary and the endorsed candidate of each party. The winner of the primary could be, and hopefully would be, the winner of the primary. But if that winner was NOT the endorsed candidate of the political party (assuming that endorsement meant something), then there is the possibility of more than two candidates from each party. Then ranked choice voting would mean something.